Keeping the Faith
I'm sitting in a McDonald's in Southport, NC, using the free wi-fi on my sadly dated but very faithful Asus netbook. It's been an eventful 2012. I expected to be winding down and staying home after a year on the road for Blood Clay that finished up with the Blue Ridge Bookfest in May. But life throws you a curve now and again. I've been staying with my parents, partaking in the "salt diet" of tears, sweat, and the sea as I move into a new phase of life. How that will end I do not know. But one thing I have promised myself, as a writer: Do not let the work suffer. Some 15 years ago, I was engaged in a complex historical fantasy as my marriage hit a hidden rock and broke up. I was a newspaper editor and "hill farmer" in addition to being a writer. One job too many, perhaps, but I think it was more a loss of faith. I lost faith in myself. Lost faith in my writing. Six hundred pages of manuscript in the box, and I could not see the way through. The c...